(Meta)Data Web Services
 
June 2019
Edward Lewis: Geospatial Analyst, BGS
 
 
FAIR Data
Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability
 
Supporting discovery through good data management
Good data management is not a goal in itself, but rather is the key conduit leading to knowledge discovery and innovation, and to subsequent data and knowledge integration and reuse by the community after the data publication process
 
In Geological Survey context can drive growth and investment
 
FAIR Data
Findable The first step in (re)using data is to find them. Metadata and data should be easy to find for both humans and computers. Machine-readable metadata are essential for automatic discovery of datasets and services
Accessible Once the user finds the required data, she/he needs to know how can they be accessed, possibly including authentication and authorisation.
Interoperable The data usually need to be integrated with other data. In addition, the data need to interoperate with applications or workflows for analysis, storage, and processing.
Reusable The ultimate goal of FAIR is to optimise the reuse of data. To achieve this, metadata and data should be well-described so that they can be replicated and/or combined in different settings.
FAIR vs Open Data
FAIR data and open data are different, although there are similarities.
 
The key difference is that open data should be available to everyone to access, use, and share, without licences, copyright, or patents. It is expected that open data at most should be subject to attribution/share-alike licenses.
 
FAIR data, however, uses the term “Accessible” to mean accessible by appropriate people, at an appropriate time, in an appropriate way. This means that data can be FAIR when it is private, when it is accessible by a defined group of people, or when it is accessible by everyone (open data).
Metadata
"data that provides information about other data"
Represents the who, what, when, where, why and how of the resource
 
Solves most of the Findable and Accessible requirements of FAIR data
Metadata Quality
Star Rating
Level of service attained
Examples
One star
Internal data index (excel/doc)
Work in progress for maps and reports
Two star
PDF on website
Three star
Table on website (with links to download/request)
Nigerian Geological Survey (https://ngsa.gov.ng/GeoMaps) 
Four star
Web Catalogue (+ CSW) with UID’s
 
 
Five star
Web catalogue conforming to ISO 19115 / 19139
Kenya Open Data (ICT Authority), British Geological Survey, Geoscience Australia
Metadata
Geological Survey of Namibia - http://www.gsn.gov.na/pdf/publicat.pdf
 
Metadata
Nigerian Geological Survey - https://ngsa.gov.ng/GeoMaps
Metadata
Geoscience Australia - https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/
Metadata
Food & Agriculture Organisation - http://www.fao.org/geonetwork/srv/en/main.home
 
Metadata Catalogues
Metadata Tools GeoNetwork 
Used by British Geological Survey, Geoscience Australia, BRGM, WHO
 
Easy to use
 
Recommended and part of the PanAfGeo training program
 
5 star metadata catalogue
 
Templates make conformable with ISO 19115
 
Free & Open Source Solution
 
Automatically sets up CSW – allowing other metadata catalogues to search records (Kenya Open Data could harvest and display records – increasing visibility of data holdings)
 
In built tools to analyse user information – what are they searching for etc.
GeoNetwork
Search page
 
GeoNetwork
Record page
 
Geonetwork
Inbuilt data portal functionality for web services such as OneGeology 
 
The I & R of FAIR Interoperable & Reusable
In GeoSpatial context
 
Star Rating
Level of service attained
Zero
Hardcopy
One star
Scanned Maps/Reports/Data Tables
Two star
Georeferenced maps/Excel/Shapefiles files
Three star
Raster/WMS/CSV/GeoPackage
Four star
WFS/RDF (with standard vocab & schemas)
Five star
Linked Open Data